there is a sweetness in you
by Someone aka Me
Summary: soulmate AU: your soulmate is the only person who cannot hurt you. Sam gets kicked off a helicarrier — yet he can't help but notice the boot to the chest doesn't hurt like it should.


Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenges: Auction: word: hopeful; Romance Awareness: Day 4: Your soulmate is the only person who can't hurt you

Word Count: 2304

…

To be honest, Sam thinks it's a stupid way to find a soulmate. Why does he have to wait until they try to hurt him? How many potential soulmates has he walked by just because he doesn't like to hurt people?

Oh, sure. Some people have cute stories, about bumping into each other by accident and not feeling pain, or about falling in love with each other and then sharing a little pinch, just to see.

His parents were the latter. He's heard the story a hundred sappy times, and his Ma still loves to tell it.

Sam's not really that kind of romantic. There's plenty of people out there who find happiness with someone who isn't their soulmate.

He always kind of figured he'd be one of them. Especially when he fell in love with Riley even after Riley slapped him on the back so hard he saw stars.

It never mattered to Sam that they weren't soulmates. He loved Riley, and Riley loved him, and they took to the skies together.

He always kind of figured that if they fell, they'd fall together, too.

Except that they don't. Riley falls and it's all Sam can do to watch.

So Sam does his best to finish out his term and go home.

He moves on as best he can. He goes to therapy at the VA and he tries not to wallow in it.

He wakes up screaming, seeing Riley fall, but that happens to the best of them.

And he's out and he's living and he's starting to counsel others when he meets Captain America, except that it turns out Captain America is just a little shit named Steve.

And then that little shit named Steve brings his troubles to Sam's doorstep, and Sam's not one to turn away a man in need, especially not one that looks so hopeful.

So Sam winds up back in.

And then there's some asshole stealing his steering wheel from between his hands and Sam's getting shot at by some other assholes and Steve's in a full on fight and the world is exploding and they've been caught.

And then some woman is asking who he is and they've got a plan to take down some planes and Sam's suiting up again, heading toward the helicarriers.

He's ducking and weaving and the wind is in his hair and his he feels alive again in a way he hasn't in too long.

They've pulled out the big guns but Sam is used to this, and he knows how to weave with the best of them.

But then he reappears. The Winter Soldier. Steve's best friend. Bucky Barnes.

Sam doesn't know what they did to him, but he's not sure he believes Bucky Barnes is even in there anymore.

And then the Winter Soldier sticks a grappling hook through his wing, and tugs him down to the surface of the helicarrier. A second yank pulls his wing clean off.

Sam scrambles to his feet, staggering a bit over the uneven weight of his wingpack. But then the Winter Soldier is stepping forward, planting his foot in Sam's chest and as Sam is falling, flying backward over the edge of the helicarrier with broken wings and all he can think is that it didn't hurt.

The Winter Soldier planted a steel-toed boot in Sam's chest and it didn't hurt a bit.

He scrabbles at his chest, manages to release his other wing and then his parachute.

He hits the ground _hard_ , the parachute only just in time. The shock resonates up his legs.

As he tells Steve he's grounded, he can't stop thinking about it.

Maybe it was just adrenaline.

It had to be the adrenaline.

There's no way his soulmate is a brainwashed ninety-year-old assassin who Sam just told Steve they couldn't save.

…

But then someone drags Steve out of the Potomac and Steve is convinced it was Bucky, that there's some fragment of Bucky left in there, and so Sam goes on a crazy quest around the world, looking for a man who doesn't want to be found.

He catches up to Bucky in Belgium, when Steve is on a solo mission in France. Sam doesn't for a second thing that's an accident.

Sam knocks on the door of the shabby hotel room on a hunch.

The door isn't locked. When he pushes it open, he finds Bucky sitting on the floor, because the room has no furniture at all.

Bucky blinks up at him slowly. "You're the man with the wings," he says.

His voice is raw, unused.

Sam nods.

Bucky looks down at the floor. "I'm sorry," he says.

"It's okay," Sam says, but then he pauses. "Well. It's not, really. But it's over."

Sam looks at him for a moment, and then he says, "Why did you let me find you?"

Bucky breathes in. "I need you to tell Steve to stop looking."

"Why?"

"Because he won't like what he finds." Bucky sighs. "I'm not… I've got fragments. Just… broken pieces. I'm not him. I'm not Bucky. But… maybe I can be? I need. I need time."

God. Sam can't believe he once thought this man unsalvageable.

He's so far from what he once was. He's not a cold, emotionless, automaton anymore. He's a broken man. The world's longest serving prisoner of war, and a victim of brainwashing.

He's just trying to find himself again. Sam respects that.

He sinks down against the wall beside Bucky.

"I'll tell him," he says. "And I'll try to make sure he listens, too. I'm sure you know exactly how stubborn he can be."

Bucky smiles, soft and just a little bittersweet. "Yeah," he says, the word scratching its way up his throat. "I don't remember much, but I remember that."

Sam grins at him.

…

So they stop looking.

They stop looking for Bucky. They go home.

And then they get pulled right back in with a disaster in Lagos and a bombing that's blamed on Bucky and everything goes to pieces and it ends with Sam in an underwater prison that has to be illegal, telling Tony Stark where Steve and Bucky are because Sam _believes him_.

Sam believes him, and then Tony finds out that Bucky killed his parents and everything goes to shit and Steve leaves his shield behind and leaves Tony broken on the ground.

Except that now Sam knows.

Because Bucky blocks a shot from the spiderkid at the airport and he and Sam go over the rails, except that the collision doesn't hurt at all. Bucky lands half on top of him, and Sam doesn't feel a thing.

And then Bucky is frozen in Wakanda at his own request, before Sam even gets out of the Raft.

He gets out of prison to find that he can't get his wings back, his soulmate is in cryostasis in a foreign country and probably doesn't' even know Sam's his soulmate, and he's a wanted man in his own country.

It's pretty much on par with watching Riley fall out of the sky.

But the King of Wakanda is apparently both a badass and a nice guy who feels a bit bad about chasing Bucky around the world in a weird catsuit, so he welcomes Sam and Steve into his super secret country while they try to figure out what to do now.

And then the King's kid sister finds the root of whatever's fucked up in Bucky's brain, and she does something that involves rerouting neural connections using some cutting edge genetic editing that Sam doesn't understand at all.

But whatever she does, Bucky wakes up and Steve stands in a reinforced room and recites code words at him, and Bucky just grins back at him tiredly and says, "Hey Stevie."

Sam lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

…

The thing is, being soulmates doesn't erase everything between them. Sam looks at Bucky and he still remembers feeling his wing torn from his back, still remembers the boot hitting his chest and the freefall that followed. He remembers his steering wheel being torn from his hands, losing control of the car on the bridge, wondering if this was it for him.

All of that doesn't just go away.

But he also remembers that broken man in a Belgium apartment, asking for the time to heal. He remembers Bucky asking him to move his seat up and rolling his eyes when Sam said no — with a small smile playing at his lips.

He can't decide if it's fairer to Bucky to tell him, or if it's kinder to keep it to himself while Bucky is trying to put himself back together again.

At first, he lets it slide. He gives Buck shit because it's who he is and Steve looks at him in horror but Bucky smiles and gives shit right back.

And time passes and Bucky smiles a little easier and laughs a little louder and spends his nights screaming, and maybe Sam understands a little bit about that.

Then he finds Bucky sitting alone in the kitchen at three AM, Sam getting up from a nightmare, Bucky presumably doing the same.

"Hey," he says, and Bucky whirls around, startled, and springs forward before Sam even has a chance to react. Sam finds himself pinned to the wall, metal arm at his throat.

He breathes shallow, trying to grab enough air to breathe, and then says softly, "Hey, hey. It's me. It's Sam. You're in Wakanda."

Bucky looks at him, eyes wild, chest heaving. Sam knows that Bucky can't hurt him, but it's still not exactly soothing to be pinned, knowing exactly how dangerous Bucky is capable of being.

He thinks if he were anyone else, his throat would be bruising from the grip.

He watches Bucky close his eyes, take a deep breath, and let go.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice small and broken. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He still hasn't opened his eyes.

"Hey," Sam says. "Hey. We're okay. I'm okay."

Bucky takes in a deep, shuddering breath.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

He looks like he's starting to panic, and Sam can't let that happen. He pitches his voice low and soothing. "Bucky, open your eyes. I'm okay. You didn't hurt me."

Bucky pulls in a breath, opens his eyes, and looks at Sam. Sam tugs the collar of his pajama shirt below his collarbone, baring his uninjured throat.

Bucky steps forward, runs the fingers of his flesh hand over the smooth skin of Sam's throat.

"How?" he says. "I pinned Steve like that and even he bruised, though it healed in like ten minutes."

Sam gives him a lopsided smile. Apparently it's time for the truth. "You can't hurt me," he says. "You've never hurt me, not physically."

Bucky's mouth actually drops open in shock.

"What?" he rasps.

Sam shrugs slightly. "I didn't really know how to bring it up… but yeah."

"So… so we're… soulmates?"

Sam rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Uh, yeah."

Bucky looks at him, and then he smiles, soft and slow.

"I always… I figured my soulmate died a long time ago."

Sam smiles at him, bittersweet. "I didn't figure I needed one. But I don't think the universe really cares."

…

It doesn't make things perfect.

Bucky is still shattered fragments still figuring out how to be a man again. Sam has still his own past to deal with.

But when Bucky has nightmares and wakes up screaming, flailing limbs and grasping hands, he doesn't have to worry about hurting Sam.

And when Sam sees Riley fall in his dreams and wakes up shouting his name, grasping Bucky's wrist like a lifeline, like it's Riley's and Sam can pull him to safety, Sam doesn't have to worry about leaving bruises.

And they have time. Time to find the way their broken pieces fit together. Time to figure out who they are, both separately and together.

Steve doesn't understand them at all. He doesn't even notice the shift when they talk in the kitchen — which, to be fair to Steve, is a subtle shift.

Because Sam won't stop giving Bucky shit. He sees the way Bucky's lips twist as he shoots a retort back.

It's who they are, and being soulmates isn't going to change it.

...

Their first kiss is almost six months after the moment in the kitchen.

It's not like Sam expects.

He and Bucky are fireworks, clashing all the way, bittersweet and pain in with their softness.

But their first kiss is something else. It's the middle of the night, as they so often are. They're watching some stupid show, reclined on the couch, Bucky's head nestled on Sam's shoulder. It's warm and secure and Bucky sits up and leans in and his lips meet Sam's and they're all soft sweetness, all gentleness.

And somehow that's its own kind of perfect.

…

Sam never figured he'd find his soulmate. He really never figured he'd be kicked off a helicarrier by him. He _really_ never figured his soulmate would be a ninety-year-old ex-assassin with a lot of trauma.

But he understands now, the temptation to tell sappy stories about him. He understands the temptation to be romantic and stupid over someone.

Loving Bucky doesn't diminish the way he loved Riley. And Riley not being his soulmate didn't make it worth any less.

But he loves Bucky differently.

He loves Bucky because Bucky is strength and persistence and vulnerability and sly humour. He's weirdly nerdy about the strangest things and Sam loves the brightness in his eyes when he rambles about them. He's broken, but he doesn't let that stop him.

So yeah, Sam never really expected any of this.

But he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
